I do not believe that a race or a nation is created to be less equal or less intelligent than another race or another nation. Humans are only humans. We eat. We are taught. We think. The fact that you are a son of the most powerful country in the human history does not necessarily make you right or correct. I have very often seen people born in the poorest and least developed countries but are very intelligent and competent, and also people born in the richest and most developed countries but are nothing more than idiots, though in human forms with human rights and human weights. Intelligence must be distributed largely equally on this planet.
South Korea is in war as some of you must know already. Here are some links:
http://www.feer.com/international-relations/2008/june/Seouls-Mad-Cow-Fiasco
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/26/AR2008062600252.html
http://www.econlib.org/library/Mackay/macExtoc.html
Politics and sometimes even daily civilian lives could be very sensitive and violent because of the existence of North Korea. Too many were killed in the 1950-1953 Korean War and too many were died of famine during the 1990s in North Korea. Some labor union members in South Korea kill themselves in public places as if they were the objects of some solemn rituals.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/23/AR2008062302135.html [Al-Qaeda’s Growing Online Offensive]
Not only Al-Qaeda. South Korea is one of the most heavily-wired places on Earth. Per capita cost is very low considering the usual bandwidth is 10Mps to 100Mbps and with no daily or monthly limit. You can actually download and upload at once at 100Mbps speed 24 hours x 365 days and pay only about US$300 annually though you’ll also have to add a 1TB SATA or USB HDD everyday and regroup everything often. Since most people, and MOST young people can stay online and post some things including lots of video and audio files, it is a very ideal environment to experiment DIGITAL PARTICIPATORY DEMOCRACY. Participatory government was often the term used by the former regime lead by Roh Mu-Hyun, the most anti-American president in South Korea.
Alexis Tocqueville who wrote Democracy in America in the 19th century was ignorant in that he couldn’t predict the future of science and technologies and how they will affect the future of the lives and politics of humans, but he still could leave a good warning about idiots and fanatics that try to decide the destiny of people with intelligence and good will.
Seriously, young students in South Korea like to think North Korea can win in a war with the US and Japan. They cannot prove how, but they can still enjoy comic books and movies that are more based on ancient myths and deliberately distorted history books than military statistics or economic realities. Imagine what the leader of such people can do in this 21st century armed with the best internet infrastructure. It is savage how ordinary mothers of 10-year-old school boys and girls cry, and I mean they actually cry, saying, “I don’t want US beef imported because I don’t want my children to die.” Somehow, their image of any US beef has been turned into something out of Andromeda Strain.
I don’t know why idiots are everywhere, and I know I have to respect even the rights of idiots, but idiots exercising violence are too dangerous and disgusting. I’ve been considering to join some activist groups helping the police, not the enemies. I mean, on the downtown Seoul streets.
The above are related to politics, but intelligent members will be able to add posts that are sane, constructive, even intellectually insightful.
Some of my friends in Seoul and other cities are toying with SopCast. Seems great, the video and audio are played all over the world, but better on WiBro, not the conventional 802.11a/b/g/n wireless. SopCast will be used to broadcast our protest against the protesters. This is all because we allowed North Korea to have nuclear arms.
